


Moondance

by pauraque



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Bisexuality, F/F, Long-Distance Friendship, Mentions of Canonical Character Death, Polyamory, Pre-Relationship, San Francisco Bay Area, Season 2, Space Swap 2020, discussion of Beverly Crusher/Jean-Luc Picard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:56:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23486398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pauraque/pseuds/pauraque
Summary: During her year at Starfleet Medical, Beverly keeps in touch with Deanna over subspace channels, and begins to realize she may have left theEnterprisefor the wrong reasons—and not just the wrong reasons she already knew about.
Relationships: Beverly Crusher/Deanna Troi
Comments: 22
Kudos: 59
Collections: Space Swap 2020, Women of Star Trek





	Moondance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weakinteraction](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakinteraction/gifts).



"Doctor? Are you listening?"

Beverly's gaze snaps away from the sunny San Francisco day out the open window and back to the Vulcan researcher standing before her. "I'm so sorry, Dr. Yarik," she says, searching through the stack of padds on her desk, flustered at having let herself get distracted again. "I do remember your proposal, it was about telomere splicing in Andorians. I know I have it here somewhere..."

"Our proposal has already been approved by the peer review panel," Yarik says, clasping her hands behind her back. "However, I wish to make a personal request to conduct our experiments earlier than scheduled. My research partner's academic visa will expire before the dates assigned to us, and the possibility of Starfleet Security approving an extension seems... remote."

"Right, the Cardassian," Beverly sighs, sitting back in her chair. She taps her fingers on the edge of the desk, searching her mind for a solution that isn't there. "I'm sorry, I'm not sure I can do that. The equipment needed for your experiments is in very high demand. Time with it is scheduled down to the minute, even overnight. It would be impossible to fit you in without delaying someone else's research."

"I understand," Yarik says, though the slightest downward quirk of her lips betrays heavy disapproval. "Yet I thought that perhaps, given the particular challenges we have faced, an exception might be made to your standard policy."

Beverly tries not to squirm under the intensity of Yarik's gaze. There's nothing quite like being stared down by a Vulcan. She would almost rather be shouted at—as does happen with discontented researchers from time to time.

She sets her jaw and says, "I'm sorry, Doctor. I can't help you."

Yarik breathes in as if to answer back, but instead holds it, acknowledges Beverly's refusal with a tight bow, turns on her heel and strides briskly out of the office. And that's about as angry as a Vulcan gets.

Beverly slumps back in her seat with a deep exhale. She looks back out the window again, past the bridge to the azure sky and sea beyond. A very nice view for a very important person—not that she ever actually gets a chance to go out there and experience the windy beaches or the green spaces of the Presidio. Sometimes she feels no closer to them than if she were on a starship exploring a remote sector of the galaxy.

Before she gets back to work, she notices the crescent of the Moon suspended above the Marin headlands, distant and pale.

*

As she rides the bus home to Japantown, the now-bright Moon travels with her along the glittering tops of the buildings in the starless urban night sky. She hasn't been up there yet, even though she's been back in the Sol system for months. Resting her head against the window, she can see the spiderlike outline of Tycho City in the south. Her home town of Copernicus is hidden in the Earth's shadow.

She remembers living in that shadow, when she was small and her parents were still with her. As a child, it felt normal for each night to last a month, and each day too. A slow and easygoing rhythm that was all she knew. When she first moved to a planet, it felt at first like she was spinning madly, with light and dark constantly slipping away from her before she could fully grasp them.

She comes home to a dark, empty apartment. Throwing her things down on the couch by muscle memory before her eyes even adjust, she wants nothing more than to go to bed. But then she notices the pulsing blue light on her desktop monitor, a beacon that draws her there. A funny kind of nervous hope sparks somewhere inside her, and becomes a glow of pleasure when the computer informs her that she has an incoming subspace transmission from the USS Enterprise.

It's Deanna who appears when she activates the monitor—at first looking occupied by something offscreen, then noticing her transmission has been answered and meeting Beverly's eyes with a delighted smile. "Ah, there you are!"

"I hope I didn't keep you waiting long," Beverly says, sitting down and scooting her chair up closer, finding herself suddenly smiling too.

"Not at all. I just got off duty and thought I'd try to catch you." She raises an eyebrow. "A tough day at the office?"

Beverly's smile turns wry. "Is it that obvious?"

"Maybe not as obvious as it would be if you were here beside me, but your face speaks volumes."

"Well, it's good to see a friendly face, that's for sure." It's good, too, to see the familiar edges and curves of Deanna's quarters in the background behind her—identical, of course, to the quarters that had once been Beverly's own. Beverly finds herself longing to walk through the monitor's screen, like Alice passing through the looking glass. "How are things there?"

"Nothing extraordinary to report. We're 'observing an accretion disk that may be in the process of forming a new planetary system'," Deanna says, clearly quoting something she's been told is interesting, but doesn't entirely see the point of. She gives a slight, humoring roll of her eyes. "Not really my field, so I've mostly been catching up on crewmember followups."

"How's Wesley?" Beverly asks, attempting a casual tone. She hasn't spoken to him in a while; she hasn't wanted to smother him.

"He seems to be adjusting to his duties well." Deanna drops her chin, giving a look that's nothing so serious as a warning—just a gentle reminder. "Of course, I couldn't say anything in a _professional_ capacity."

"No, no, I didn't mean to imply that. I know you have to maintain a certain... separation." Beverly makes a gesture of moving her hands apart. "I wouldn't want to make that any harder for you."

"I appreciate that." Deanna reaches up to unpin her hair and shakes it out, runs her hands through the workday tangles. "One of the challenges of my position is that the longer I serve aboard a ship, and the more I get to know its crew, the more difficult it is to do the job I trained for in the way I'm supposed to do it."

"Because you're not unbiased," Beverly guesses, finding her eyes drawn to Deanna's hair curling loosely around her half-bare shoulders.

Deanna nods. "It's a bit like being the only mental health professional practicing in a small town. I don't have the privilege of being rigid about not treating people I know personally."

"It's the same for medical doctors. Our friends and family aren't supposed to be our patients..." The memory of familiar faces in sick-bay beds flicker dimly in Beverly's mind. "...but on board a starship with only a certain complement of medical staff, those ideals tend to fly out the window."

Deanna's head tilts curiously. Her soft, dark eyes search Beverly's face. "It's... difficult for you to see people you love in danger," she says. "To know their lives are in your hands."

Startled, Beverly stiffens as if caught with her hand in the cookie jar. "I thought you couldn't sense my feelings over a subspace channel."

"I can't," Deanna says. "It was only an educated guess, given what I know of you, and how you looked just then. I apologize if it was presumptuous."

"No... it wasn't, honestly," Beverly sighs, resting her elbow on her desk and her cheek in her hand. "You were absolutely right. And I knew the longer I served aboard the Enterprise, the worse it would get. Even with the people I hadn't known before, I was already getting... attached." She gives a quick, tight smile.

"That must be frightening," Deanna ventures. "I know that you were attached to someone very profoundly, and you lost him."

Beverly's gaze wanders over the dark cityscape out the window of her apartment—the lights of vehicles moving up and down the hill of Sutter Street, dawning over the crest as they rise, and vanishing like extinguished candle flames as they fall.

"Yes," she says.

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to therapize you. It's a bad habit."

"It's all right." Her eyes trace over Deanna's shoulder again, and she finds herself wishing to rest her head there, to let herself be comforted.

"I tend to fall back on it more when I can't sense someone," Deanna admits. "Many Betazoids try to avoid long-distance communications. We find it feels strange to talk to someone face to face, yet not sense anything from them. It's like talking to a hologram, or a photograph."

Beverly used to talk to a photograph of Jack sometimes, but she doesn't say so.

"You can tell me what's troubling you at work, if you'd like to. I promise I'll listen as a friend, not as a counselor."

"Oh, it's not anything I can't handle," Beverly says, leaning back in her seat, swiveling it back and forth a little, peering up at the darkened ceiling. "I knew what I was getting into when I took the job. It's just... I have to deal with so many medical researchers who all want to use the equipment here, and there's not enough time for all of them. I can't say I enjoy being the bad guy, telling people what they can't have."

"Can the equipment not be replicated?"

Beverly draws a slow breath, suppressing her frustration, and patiently explains what she has explained to others so many times: "Yes, it can... eventually. There's a huge quantity of precision parts involved, and everything has to go through a rigorous testing process before it's used. There aren't many engineers who are qualified to do that work."

"And they have demands on their time too," Deanna adds.

"Exactly. See, _you_ understand! But some of the people around here..." She shakes her head.

Deanna's eyes search thoughtfully, her gaze directed somewhere offscreen. "It often seems to me that time may be the most valuable asset we have. Unlike material goods, we can't simply make more of it at the press of a button. And the lack of it is often the only real barrier to getting what we want."

The thought of _what we want_ sits uneasily in Beverly's mind, though she doesn't know why. "Distance can be a barrier too," she says.

"But even great distances can be closed," Deanna replies quietly, "given time."

Beverly draws a breath, but finds she isn't sure what to say. Their eyes meet across a thousand light years, and it feels for a moment like they're taking a step into an unfamiliar country.

Then, Deanna goes on: "Maybe it would help if you took some time for yourself, away from work. They do give you days off, don't they?"

"In theory, yes. But in practice I often end up taking work home with me." Beverly picks up a Starfleet-issued padd from her table and brandishes it with a grimace.

"A day off away from home, then. Somewhere without distractions. There are so many beautiful places in the Bay Area. You should allow yourself to enjoy it." Deanna smiles, as lovely as any sunny day ever could be.

*

Beverly's communicator lies silenced at the bottom of her backpack as she walks the trails of Tilden Park. The summer sun shines brightly on this fogless afternoon, warming her face and making sweat trickle down her back. The warm scent of eucalyptus surrounds her, and the flat, crescent-shaped leaves litter the path beneath her feet in a muted spectrum of every shade of brown. She avoids stepping on the hard, acorn-like seed pods; they don't crush underfoot, and can easily twist an ankle.

She's trying not to think about work, but a Vulcan jogger passes her going the other direction, and Dr. Yarik's expression of masked disappointment appears before her mind's eye.

A silly fantasy spins through Beverly's head of finding some way to manufacture more time. To reverse the polarity of something or other and squeeze just another hour or two out of the day. She imagines Geordi's face lighting up as it all falls so neatly into place. _Yeah... yeah, that should work!_

But things don't happen that way here.

She pushes herself hard up the trail to Wildcat Peak, channeling her annoyance into physical exertion. By the time she reaches the meadow at the highest point, she's winded and her thighs are aching. She turns, and sees the whole East Bay spread out below her, and across the bridge, painted in a distant blue-white haze, the San Francisco skyline. From this angle she can't see a single one of the Starfleet buildings, and right now that feels satisfying.

The ragged hills of chaparral, dotted with manzanitas, somehow remind her of another hill she stood on not so long ago, one much greener and more perfect. The memory of Tasha's voice whispers in her mind: _From you I have learned to strive for excellence, no matter what the personal cost._

She takes out her water bottle and drinks deeply. Wiping the perspiration from her brow, she notices a red-tailed hawk wheeling across the bright sky in ever-widening circles, passing in front of the faint, waxing moon.

*

Over the following days, Beverly and Deanna make a habit of eating dinner "together"—each of them sitting in front of their respective monitors, in their respective regions of the galaxy. (It's a convenient thing for them that Federation ships' clocks are pegged to the time zone at Starfleet HQ.) It helps break Beverly out of the rut of staying so late at the office and eating there, alone at her desk.

She begins to feel a certain lightness in her step as she climbs onto the bus to go home each evening. Now she's got someone waiting for her.

"I've missed eating with people," Beverly confesses, cleaning the last of the lava cake from her plate. (Deanna always encourages her to get dessert.) "I've always loved meal dates. We used to have breakfast together all the time—Jack and Jean-Luc and I. When I was on the Enterprise I thought about asking him to revive the tradition, but I didn't want it to be..." Beverly finds she can't think of the right word for what she didn't want it to be, so she just makes a vague wavey gesture.

Deanna sips her tea and asks, "Did you find it uncomfortable, working with him?" And it's not at all overt, but Beverly notices a hint of something a little too knowing in the way Deanna asks that question.

She peers at her sidelong. "You... you know my feelings about him, don't you?"

Deanna looks a bit sheepish, and admits, "Yes. I try not to pry into other people's emotions when it's not necessary. But it's not always possible to avoid it. It's more like hearing than seeing. I can't close it off entirely."

"So, if you happen to overhear a secret from behind a closed door..."

"...the best I can do is ignore it," Deanna concludes, and smiles wryly. "Which I suppose I haven't done a good job of in this case."

"It's all right," Beverly sighs. She draws her legs up tailor-fashion in her seat. "It's not even that I mind you knowing, it's just... Well, it's embarrassing! I thought I'd have gotten over these feelings by now."

"Sometimes being apart from someone only strengthens an attraction," Deanna observes, her lips curving into a smile.

"On Earth we say 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder.'"

"On Betazed we say..." Deanna raises her eyes upward for a moment, as if deciding how to express it. "'When your beloved is not at home at night, you forget how much they irritated you that morning.' It sounds better in the original language."

Beverly grins. "I like that. I suppose he and I can get under each other's skin. I irritate him sometimes, that's for damn sure..." She looks down at her hands, rubbing her wrists together. "Well, what am I saying... You must already know how he feels about me." Glancing up at Deanna searchingly, Beverly feels uncomfortably exposed, both wanting Deanna to take the implied bait, to give her some hint of Jean-Luc's feelings, and afraid of what she'll say if she does.

Deanna hesitates. "I think that's something to be worked out between the two of you, not through an intermediary," she says at last, tactfully.

Beverly finds herself relieved, safely back behind a boundary. She gives a teasing half-smile. "What, you don't want to pass notes to your classmates, asking boys if they know your friend likes them? Do schoolchildren do that on Betazed?"

"Yes, they do," Deanna laughs through a wide grin, her eyes sparkling. "I suspect the challenge of telling someone how you feel about them is a universal one."

"I imagine it's easier if you can simply feel one another's emotions."

Deanna considers. "Perhaps easier in some ways, and more difficult in others. Sometimes putting things into words is less a matter of conveying pure emotion, and more one of communicating intention. We don't always act on our feelings. Even if you know what someone feels, what they choose to do about it can be unpredictable."

"That's true." Beverly turns her fork over on the table, and over again, letting her gaze be captured by the multicolored gleam of city lights reflecting on its tines. "I was attracted to Jean-Luc long before Jack died. I had choices about what to do... and I made them."

She glances up at Deanna's face on the screen, seeing her nod with calm understanding. Deanna has that knack for accepting the expression of a painful thing. Not rushing to soothe it away, but simply making space for it without judgement.

"Sometimes," Beverly says, sitting in the dark of her apartment with the light of the monitor making her own face and hands glow, "I wished I could have had them both. And now I don't have either one."

After a small hesitation, Deanna asks, "Could you not have had them both?"

Beverly's eyes go wide. "What?"

Deanna closes her lips tightly, as though holding in a smile. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to shock you. On Betazed, it's commonplace to have more than one lover at once. I know some humans are less keen on the idea."

Beverly finds her cheeks going warm, embarrassed by her own surprise. "Well, of course I know it's not unheard of. I had a Denobulan roommate at the Academy. They had to make extra space at our graduation for all her parents' other spouses."

"Then you knew it was possible."

"For them, maybe, but..." She looks at Deanna pleadingly, through a slight wince. "Don't people get jealous?"

"Sometimes," Deanna admits. "But monogamy doesn't seem to eliminate jealousy either, as far as I know."

"Fair point."

"The way most of us see it on Betazed, lovers are like friends," Deanna explains, as though this is a discussion she's grown accustomed to having. "To have a friend is lovely, but it doesn't prevent you from making as many other friends as you like. It would be quite unnecessary—and painful—to have to choose between them."

Beverly allows herself to think, then, of what it might be like not to have to make those kinds of choices any longer—to, instead, choose _everything_. The image that flashes through her mind is of a starship departing from its cramped little homeworld, finally knowing that the sky is not a limit, but a door that opens onto a boundless galaxy of possibilities, rising like a sunburst over the horizon of the Moon.

*

With all the furniture pushed to the walls, there is enough room for Beverly to dance. That's why she opted for a big open-plan apartment in the first place—more space than she really needed—but she never seems to find time to actually use it.

Tonight, that changes.

She has the computer play her a classic of 20th century jazz, an upbeat rendition from a live performance. Of course, the sound quality isn't the best, given the limitations of antique recording equipment, but that doesn't matter. Somehow the low fidelity makes it feel more real... a slight grittiness that reminds her that these were real instruments, real people, a snapshot of one evening nearly 400 years in the past.

She feels clumsy at first, self-conscious. She hasn't danced in so long. But soon she catches the rhythm, and muscle memory takes over, steps flowing into pivots and a quick ball-change. Nothing choreographed or studio-correct, just improvising.

The musicians do the same, each instrument taking its turn to explore the scales over these chords, punctuated by enthusiastic audience applause echoing through the centuries. The flute, the piano, the saxophone, the human voice... each supporting all the others, all the vital parts of the whole.

Music runs through her every muscle, her every nerve. The sensual energy of the things she can do with her body, the patterns and designs into which she knows how to shape it—it's like making love to herself, _with_ herself, a pulse-pounding celebration of joy.

She pirouettes across the floor, in front of the sparkling city lights out her windows. The now-full Moon is starkly bright and shining through the darkness, as though beaming its approval of a song that calls its name, written just at the moment in history when the people of the Earth were reaching out to touch it for the very first time.

*

It isn't difficult to route a subspace communication through a padd. When having long, personal conversations, it's often more comfortable to be able to relax on a sofa with a padd in your hands than to have to sit up at a monitor.

Of course, there's no reason to stop there.

Deanna is the first to get into bed while they're talking. They're already both in their pajamas—that started happening weeks ago, as their after-dinner conversations began to linger further into each evening. They don't even pause their conversation when they change anymore; they simply move out of frame and keep talking.

While Deanna is changing, Beverly can hear the rustle of fabric near the padd's microphone. It's hard not to think about what's happening just beyond the screen's vision, and in those moments, Beverly finds herself relieved that her feelings are strictly her own.

But when Deanna actually gets into bed, she does it so casually that at first Beverly hardly notices. Just some shakiness of the image on the screen, slightly more turbulent breaths as Deanna moves, and a darker background—Deanna's pillow.

"It seems that Ensign Umeda has pretty thoroughly taken over your position," Deanna is saying as she settles herself and gets comfortable.

"Oh?"

"Yes. She's putting on a production of _The Tempest_ now."

Beverly is surprised at the twinge of envy she feels. She'd wanted to direct that play. "Hmm. That could be a big undertaking. I know she directed some plays at the Academy, but..."

"Just between us," Deanna says, sliding her hand underneath her cheek where it rests on the pillow, "I think she rather relishes the opportunity to order her superior officers around."

"It happens with shipboard plays sometimes." Beverly sneaks under her own blankets as quietly as she can, trying not to make it obvious. "I don't think any of my new colleagues are interested in theater. Not that I'd really have the time."

"It's interesting that you still call them your _new_ colleagues," Deanna points out. "It's been ten months. That's nearly as long as you served aboard the Enterprise."

"Has it really been that long?" Beverly sighs, rolling onto her side and nestling into her pillow. "I really can't thank you enough for staying in touch. I know I can be a bit of a complainer sometimes. It's kind of you to put up with me."

Deanna gives a funny little half-laugh, as if she can't quite believe Beverly would say that. "Surely you don't think it's a hardship? I enjoy spending time with you. If anything, I've wondered if _you're_ not getting tired of seeing _my_ face every night."

"Not at all." She gazes into Deanna's dark eyes, so very close and yet so far away. "I... I like seeing your face."

A slow, soft smile spreads across Deanna's face. "As do I. And I like hearing your voice."

Beverly feels a flutter of butterflies in her stomach as she admits, "Me too."

They both laugh a little, awkwardly.

Deanna draws in her lower lip. "I wish I could sense you right now. I think I can guess what you're feeling, but it puts me a bit off-balance not to be completely sure."

"Now you see what we non-empaths have to deal with."

"How do you manage it?"

"Not very well, honestly. Over eons of evolution, you'd think we'd have it all figured out by now."

"Isn't it difficult, having to reveal your attraction to someone without being certain that your feelings are returned?"

In a moment of strange boldness, Beverly raises an eyebrow and says, "You tell me."

Deanna's face lights up with delighted surprise. "Beverly! I had no idea you could be so debonair."

Beverly feels her cheeks go warm. "I didn't know I could either."

They both laugh again, and this time it feels like a release, ratcheting down the tension. Beverly curls her legs up beneath her blankets and brings the padd closer, more intimate. She can almost imagine that they're in bed together, facing one another, their knees nearly touching.

As though thinking the same thing, Deanna says in a low voice, "If I were with you right now, what would you do?"

"I'm not sure," Beverly admits. For a moment she feels small and vulnerable, curled up alone in her bed. "I might start by taking your hand. It's astonishing how you can miss even the simplest touch when it isn't there." 

"I would like that," Deanna tells her, and the open-hearted sweetness of it feels almost as good as if their fingers were intertwining right here and now.

Beverly squeezes the padd hard in her hand. There's a part of her that wants... whatever this is. Wants to see what might grow in the vast distances between them. But... "I have a frustrating tendency to fall for people who aren't available," she says with a rueful smile. "I guess I've done it again."

"I may not be physically present," Deanna says simply, "but that doesn't mean I'm not available."

Beverly finds her mind slipping down inviting paths of fantasy—of what kinds of things two people could do together while not in the same room. "I think you have more experience than I do with... nontraditional relationships."

A small, secret smile. "Perhaps. But everyone begins somewhere."

"I have to think about this," Beverly says, though that smile is seriously threatening her resolve. "Right now... I've got work in the morning. I should get some sleep."

"So should I."

There is an awkward pause where clearly neither one of them wants to be the first to say goodnight. They both laugh a little.

Then Deanna brings her fingertips to her mouth and blows Beverly a trillion-mile kiss. Beverly catches it in her hand, and after a split second of hesitation, she presses it to her own lips, feeling her heart beating as she does so.

After they've signed off, Beverly doesn't put the padd away. Instead she finds herself hugging it to her chest, curled up on her side in bed and cuddling it like a beloved teddy bear.

*

The face of Beverly's assistant peeks in through her half-open office door. "Doctor? There was just a cancellation in the schedule for the MHE Array," he says. "Should I notify the first team on the waiting list?"

"A cancellation? When?" She swipes through her calendar, searching for a gap.

"September 25th and 26th," he answers. "Dr. Yarik said she decided not to go forward with her experiment, since her research partner has to return to Cardassia."

"But she's been working towards this for years! Surely she could have found someone else qualified..."

He shrugs. "I don't know, Doctor. That's all she said—just that if Dr. Suled couldn't be here, she didn't want to do it without him."

For a moment, Beverly is stunned into speechlessness. Without the partner who'd been with her every step of the way, the achievement would have been meaningless to her.

"Slot the next group into the schedule," she mutters at last. Her assistant nods and goes back to his desk. For some group of researchers, somewhere, today is going to be a very happy day.

Her fingers feeling oddly numb, Beverly opens a document to compose the academic recommendation she'd been about to work on before her assistant came in. At least, that's what she means to do.

But somehow, when she begins to write, she finds that she is typing out a resignation letter instead.

First she pours out everything—all that she's been thinking and feeling, her sadness, her loneliness, her frustrations. Then, without even reading it back, she holds down the delete key and watches it all disappear, paragraph after paragraph swallowed up into electronic oblivion, until she comes back to the beginning and the document is satisfyingly clean and blank.

Then she writes her real resignation letter: Simple, professional, and acceptable for public consumption. It's only a few sentences long, but when she's finished and sends it off, it is such an enormous relief. It's like walking out of a domed city onto the untamed lunar surface, and suddenly losing two thirds of her weight—light, unburdened, free.

*

When Beverly makes her rendez-vous with the Enterprise and beams on board, Deanna is there to greet her in the transporter room. She spreads her arms with an almost teary smile, and it's so very natural and satisfying to embrace her, to be embraced by her.

"It's so good to sense you again," Deanna murmurs into Beverly's shoulder.

Beverly can't sense Deanna's emotions. But she can feel the warmth and the shape of her body in her arms. The soft scent of her skin, and the tickle of her curly hair against her cheek. Real and present, with not one millimeter of distance left between them.

So she whispers: "Likewise."


End file.
